The Girl with the Purple Eyes
by Robina Snyder
Summary: Elisa is banished from Faraven for the crime of murdering her sister and only heir to the throne. She hates herself for the death of her sister and ostracizes herself from anyone who could make her banishment easier. Spans a year of Elisa's life on earth.


A/N: Hi, this is not a normal fanfiction. It's actually a fanfiction of an unpublished sequel to a trilogy my friend wrote. You can check it out on DeviantArt about my friend and all. This story is basically a condensened retelling of the sequel to her trilogy, which she wrote when she was in middle school. She liked my story and said she might consider rewriting her novels because now she sees them as salvageable. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

My name is Elisa, and I am the princess of Faraven. I am currently banished to the outside world. I miss my home terribly, but I cannot return. I have done a terrible thing and I cannot return. I thought my life was over when I came here, but now I'm not so sure. Faraven is a land of magic, but we don't have science. Our land is fairly backwards in many respects. Normal man can do with science what we had to learn from the faeraries. Sometimes as I lie awake, my conscious too burdened to allow sleep, I imagine how wonderful it would be to bring the information I learned in the normal work to Faraven… and then I remember why I cannot return.

My people have little contact with the normal world of man. The only information we have is from Kia and Josh, the great war heroes who saved our land from itself when we were embroiled in a bitter civil war. They left years before I was even conceived and did not speak that much on their home lands. I wish they had, but I feel as if the world has changed so much since the Great War Heroes lived in Faraven. I've never heard so much as a mention of the word ipod in the texts about the normal world.

According to the laws of our land, any banished person must be given the ability to care for themselves. I was given the monies that our magicians replicated for me, a whole bunch of it, and I was given a place to stay in a girl's boarding house. The owner was also a banished Faraven. She doesn't know who I am though, she just knows I was banished. She's the only reason why I'm alive still. She taught me how to use a toaster, she enrolled me in school, and she got me the contacts that keep people from seeing my curse.

Girls here would think of it as something fun, a mood ring, but who wants anyone to be able to read their minds? People cannot read my mind through my eyes, but they can tell how I feel. My eyes gave me away in the court, grey for guilt. They didn't even need to try me, I'd already hanged myself. I wondered if I'd still be home if I had these things called contacts… I'm not sure that would have made it any better. The weight of the evidence was against me, as is the weight of my guilt.

Before my sister's death she would have made a great ruler. A queen needs to be able to hide how they really feel, I cannot when my eyes change colors depending on my emotion. People think it's fun, or pretty, but it has always been the thing I hated most. I am an open book to everyone. Teachers would know when I dazed off in lessons, or when I didn't like their subject which only made them hate me. If my mind wandered people would know. If I was dissatisfied people would know. If I was hurt people would know. It sometimes felt like I couldn't even have my own thoughts to myself.

Now I hid behind my contacts and am thankful for them. I am a normal girl when I wear them. No one can read me. I am one of many. I can disappear. I like being normal sometimes, but I am not normal. Whether I am banished or not I am still a princess of Faraven and because my sister is dead I am also the only heir. Here I am just one more Junior girl in a sea of normal faces. I blend in and that is all. For now all I want is to survive. I'm not sure I deserve much else.

* * *

I have been in school for a while now. It's not a bad. The people of Faraven don't see much use in the outside world. Sure our people cheer stories of war heroes and the outsides who come in to help our people in times of great need, but they are the chosen ones, born to the other world only because they need to get have a perspective our people don't. This is what or religion has told us. Somehow our world never thinks about that our greatest heroes leave our world, the supposed greatest world, in favor of their old homes. Kia and Josh were offered estates, and homes, and everything, but they chose to leave for their own world.

This world isn't so bad, and sometimes I craze what these people would call normalcy. How nice would it be to have a normal life, not thinking about the future of my people? How nice would it be if my biggest problem is that Michael doesn't like me? How nice would it be if my biggest cause of stress was US History? I wish that was my life sometimes, that I hadn't seen my sister die, that I hadn't been banished from my home.

I live quietly, studying, trying to live in a world I don't understand. There's student in my class who tries to help me. I know the others laugh at me when I don't know how to use a computer, or what a Facebook is. Michael is okay, but he is kind to everyone. It's good to know there are those type of people in the world.

He has an interesting look. He reminds me of the old images of Kia and Josh. I used to think that Kia was the most beautiful, exotic woman ever. Then I came to other outer world and saw others like her. Compared to my people Kia is exotic, but she's not beautiful. She is simply Asian, a word I learned since my exile. When I was a child I dreamed that the son of Kia would come and think that I was good enough to be his wife. It was a fun dream, but it is unlikely. Seeing Michael reminds me of those dreams, but then so does every other Asian boy I see.

* * *

I don't want to blend in some days. Some days I want to just be left alone. I learned a long time ago that there are two ways to blend in: either move as little as possible, staying very still and barely even breathing; or act as if you belong. In a school I can move as little as possible, but there's the possibility that I can be picked on for being so quiet. This is what my house mother told me. She taught me to try and blend in, act like I belonged, make friends.

I don't want to make friends. I want to be left alone. I go to the library in the morning instead of being stuck in the cafeteria with everyone else. I eat lunch as quickly as possible and go to the library. I walk home after everyone else has left, hiding in the school library until it closes before heading to the public library. I like the solitude of books. People won't bother you, generally, if they think you're reading.

Besides that I knew nothing when I came to school. I'd been spelled to speak the language here, English, and forgot my own in exchange. I didn't understand even simple sciences, and my house mother has had to tutor me, but even she doesn't understand everything. Being in the library gives me time to read books and try to catch up. Sometimes I think that if I just read the right book I can come up with the answer to all of the problems of my home land. Sometimes I think that if I just read the right book I can come up with the answer to how I can go home. Something I think that if I just read the right book I can come up with the answer to bringing my sister back to life.

I've never found that right book. I don't think it exists, but I read so fiercely it's as if I actually believe that I will find it. It's just a silly dream isn't it?

I see Michael come in to the library a lot. He's really handsome, and very popular. I'm just one girl and a 'shy transfer student' at that. He's one of the people who go out of his way to talk to me. He asks me what I think of different topics. Generally whatever I think makes him laugh. I don't know why. Other people laugh at me and make fun of me. I'm fairly certain his laughter isn't the same type.

I feel good when I see him now. He looks a lot like the impressions I have of the Great Heroes Kia and Josh. I knew he looked like Kia, but he also has Josh's strong chin and nose. I think its wishful thinking. I'm desperately lonely, and I miss my homeland. Michael would not be the son of the two Great War Heroes, but it's wishful thinking on my part. I want to find anyone who I can talk to about Faraven politics. I cannot talk to my house mother. She is an old Faraven but she wouldn't understand me if I tried to talk to her.

My house mother is a kind woman, but she was a middle city child: one of the children of the merchants. They are very loyal to the crown and I don't think she would appreciate me if she finds out who I really am. I'm so desperately lonely sometimes that I can't help but cry. My house mother assures me that the stress of being banished is like that. She tells me that once I adjust and start making friends that my pain will ease.

I do not tell her that I don't plan on making friends. I don't deserve them.

* * *

I found out today what my house mother did to be banished. It is okay for a Faraven to love an outlander if the outlander is brought into Faraven. The king whose seed bore Kia's sister was within his legal rights when he mated with the mother of Kia. My house mother fell in love with a man she viewed through a mirror. She watched him and fell very much in love with him.

She preformed illegal magic, trying to bring him to Faraven. We cannot bring outlander to Faraven. Outlanders must be brought by the divine dragons. They are chosen. Outlanders cannot know of Faraven, or we risk losing all we hold dear. We are told from infancy that outlanders are cruel and selfish, and only the purest of heart live in Faraven. Those brought to Faraven from the outside are special, and pure, and very very rare. We are told if any outlander not chosen by the divine dragons were to find us that our way of life would be over.

My house mother broke many tasks by trying to bring the outlander. She'd never met him, and so she would have had to use a bewitching spell to make him love her. She tried to bring him into Faraven… and she broke one of our most cardinal laws: Those of Faraven may not love an outlander who is not brought to Faraven.

My house mother was tried and banished. She loved the young man for a while, and eventually he did come to love her. He died a few years into their marriage. She assures me that it was worth it. Has she succeeded he never would have really loved her, only been spelled to love her. He loved her on his own, even if it was only for a parse ten years.

* * *

There's a dance coming up. I don't want to go but my house mother tells me I should go. She teases me and tells me Michael will be there, and if I'm pretty enough he may even be enticed into a dance. I wave her off and tell her I am going only because it would be too weird for me to not go; I still need to blend in better. I do not tell her that when I have free moments I dream about myself dancing with Michael.

I know I will never return home. I miss my father who I love. Considering how the evidence staked against me I should have been executed, but my father loved me too much to see me die. He was the one who sentenced me to be exiled. I'm not sure if he believes that I was the one who killed my sister. Truthfully I'm not sure if I actually did it or not. The fight started between my sister's lover and me. My sister was the heir and as such was legally obligated to be virginal at her wedding and to marry to the advantage of the kingdom. Instead she took a lover.

I found him in her room one night. I yelled at him and told him to leave my sister alone. I threatened him with all the magic I had, something which is every bit illegal as him being with my sister. It became a heated argument and he had a terrible temper. He attacked me. My sister, whom he had been waiting for, showed up at that point. She joined into the fight to try and save me. I do not remember much after that. We all cast spells… and when it was all over my sister lay dead on the floor and her lover had run.

I was jealous of her, they all said. I killed her because I was jealous. That wasn't true. I didn't kill her because I was jealous. I was jealous of how easily she commanded the presence of others, how easily she made friends, how easily she could talk to the dignitaries and the ministers. I was jealous of how good she was at everything she did and how golden everything she touched turned out. But I loved her, and I was so excited to see her as a queen someday. We'd spent many nights planning out my roll in her reign. My eyes made me a double edged sword because of how easily everyone could read me. I wanted to work to review laws and help to advise my sister on policy. I'm a big fan of policy making. I never wanted to be queen.

It doesn't seem like I will ever be queen now, which is good because I would have messed it all up. I may have killed my sister. I miss her, I miss father. I do not know what to do with myself sometimes. I want to go home. I want to help my people, and teach them from what I've learned here in the outlands. I want to stay here and become a normal student. I want Michael to look at me at the dance and want to dance with me.

I don't think I'll ever get anything I want.

* * *

My house mother helped me get dressed. She'd used her magic to create the dress for me. It's sparkly and dark blue, with a hanging light blue sash and a butterfly were a bow normally would be. It reminds me of the dresses I've seen on women from the roaring 20's, except it hugs me better. I look beautiful, not as beautiful as my sister would have in such an outfit, but she always was the beautiful one. I'm sure that I'm not going to be as near beautiful as every other girl, but I feel great about myself.

My house mother drives me to the dance. She says she'll get me at midnight. She calls me Cinderella and I just give her a confused look, not understanding. She doesn't explain and just drives off. I'm the only girl in the house who is going to the dance. I'm the youngest girl in the house. The others are all studying at the local college.

I head inside. The inside is overly decorated, glitter, and lights. It all looks fake, not like the balls back home, and there are so many people. For a moment I feel as if the press of people pushes all the air out of my lungs. I move inside and over to a table. I don't think anyone even notices me.

I sit at the table for a while. I arrived when most everyone else did. They all go to their friends, enjoying themselves. I'm ignored. I sit in silence and feel lonely. I imagine that my sister is with me and we're giving our opinions on the weird and obnoxious way outlanders dance, and the loud and obnoxious music they listen to. This only makes me feel worse. I don't think I can feel much worse until I see Michael spinning a girl on the dance floor. I'm sure she's his date. She's beautiful.

I wish he would notice me as someone like her, someone to dance with and not just someone to be kind to and laugh at. I don't know what time it is, but time has become a snail. I know it's nowhere near time for my house mother to show up, but I'm fidgety to leave. I wish I hadn't come.

The music changes and I stand up, heading for the floor. I know this song. I like this song. A lot of people leave the dance floor, thinking the song is 'lame'. This song has always reminded me of the songs of faraven. I'm so lonely for home. It's time for the planting festival. I missed the harvest festival, during those days I danced the ceremonial dances alone at night, every night of the week. This is the planting festival week. I have danced the ceremonial dances of my own each night of the week. This is the final night of the festival, and now I dance the final dance of the festival, my favorite dance, the dance of good fortune.

It's a very passionate dance. We dance to excise all of our demons and try to entice the good luck spirits, the full energy and fun good luck spirits, to be with us in the coming year. I have had a horrible year. The death of my sister, maybe by my own hand; my banishment; having to learn a whole new culture; and Michael doesn't even know I exist as more than something to laugh at. I cannot forgive myself yet for the death of my sister, but I'm tired of crying alone in my room. I'm tired of being lonely. I'm tired of my quiet desperation. I'm tired of praying for the past year to be a lie, and that when I open my eyes I'll be back in the palace of Faraven. I'm tired to praying that I will just die.

So I dance and I dance. I shut my eyes, but I do not cry this time, as I have done every other time I have danced the ceremonial dances. I throw all my uncried tears, all of my energy into this dance. I will throw out the demons that haunt me and I will entice the good luck spirits… maybe then I will want to be alive again.

The song finishes and so does my dance. When I open my eyes I find that Michael is standing in front of me. I feel like I should be embarrassed, but I am drained or all my energy from the good luck dance. I look at him a wait for him to say something. He's so close to me I can smell his soap, it's a nice smell.

"Where did you learn to do that?" he asks.

"Do what?"

"The dance of good fortune?" he asks me. I am stunned that he knows what it is called… that he can identify it.

"How do you know about the dance of good fortune?" I hiss.

"My mother dances it every year and this time. She dances all the dances all the Faraven planting festival dances," he says. He said "Faraven Planting Festival," like he doesn't really know what it is… but he still said the name of Faraven

"How do you know about the planting festival?" I ask softly, looking around. I do not want anyone to overhear, and I am sure it is illegal for outlanders to know about anything from Faraven.

"How do you know?" he asks in a hiss, leading me off away from people.

"I'm from Faraven," I say softly, still looking around. He stops suddenly and stares at me.

"Faraven really exists? You mean all the stories my mother told me were true?" he asks.

I can only stare at him. I assume that his mother must be like my house mother: a woman who was banished because of her love of an outlander. That means his father must be the Asian. I taste something bitter in my mouth, the ashes of a stupid dream. There's no way his parents would have been Kia and Josh. I was being stupid when I thought they looked alike. Still… he is the son of a Faraven. I realize that I may not be completely alone.

"Yes, Faraven is a real place. I am from there," I say.

"So, what are you doing here?" he asks. "Mother says that the Faravenians don't mix with the rest of the world."

"I was banished," I said mournfully. There's a bitterness in my words, but in saying them it feels like a bile has been cleaned from my soul.

"Oh… I'm sorry," he said softly. He doesn't press the issue. I am thankful. "Um… would you like to dance?"

I am momentarily star struck by the question. I want to dance with Michael more than anything… and he actually asked me. I can only nod numbly. That I'm so tired my legs are trembling doesn't matter. Michael asked me to dance. I am taken out to the dance floor once more and Michael pulls me close. I almost ask what he's doing and then I hear that the music is a slower tempo than what the other dance songs were. I realize with a blush that I'm having my first slow dance in the outland with Michael.

I'm not sure when the dance started or ended. It lasted the span of a heart beat. It lasted the span of an eon. When it ends all I can do is murmur that I need to powder my nose and slip of the bathroom. I stand there shaking for the longest time. My legs are trembling so bad I'm surprised that they're holding me up at all. My eyes are itching from sweat. I'm sure I'm disgusting after the dance of good fortune. Why would he even want to dance with me?

I slip out my contacts and wash my face. For a moment I stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are a deep purple, a color they'd never been before. They turn red when I'm angry, blue when I'm sad, green when I'm happy, yellow when I'm ill… but never purple. I realize what it means as I blush… I'm in love.

I slip my contacts back in and head back out. I'm surprised when Michael is waiting for me. I'm in love with him, but I'm sure it's all one-sided. He danced with me because I'm a Faraven. He danced with me because he felt sorry for me for being banished… but he waited for me, didn't he? Does that mean he might like me a little bit too?

* * *

Days have passed since the dance. Somehow it seems like I've been floating ever since. I still feel the pain of my sister's death and the guilt and the loneliness… but it all seems less, or maybe less significant. Michael has continued to talk to me. In fact he talks to me more now. He told me that he likes the way I talk. It's blunt and formal and I seem to see things in ways that most other people don't. He finds me interesting and he thinks what I say is funny, even if I don't mean it to be. He doesn't make fun of me, but he likes to be around me because he says that what I say makes him feel less stressed. I don't really understand, but I get to spend more time with him.

He invited me to come to his home this afternoon. I'm really excited. I'll be in Michael's home, and I'll get to meet Michael's Faraven mother. He told me his father divorced his mother a few years ago and remarried. That makes me sad. Doesn't he understand the sacrifices Michael's mother would have had to make to be with him?

* * *

I cannot believe what I have seen this afternoon. I went to Michael's home. It was a nice place, but I don't remember too much of it, not enough to describe it. All I remember is all the stuff buzzing around my head right now. I expected Michael's mother to be all blonde hair and blue eyes, like what's common in Faraven. Instead she was Asian like Michael. One look at her and I recognized her: Kia, the Great War Hero.

It was like I'd known somehow that if would be her. Somehow I wasn't surprised that if was her. I wasn't surprised that she'd been married to Josh, or that she'd been friends with my father, or that she knew my sister when she was a baby. I was surprised at how normal she was. She wrote books, she paid bills, she read history. I was surprised that she was divorced. I was surprised that Josh and Kia, the golden couple, had divorced.

We were taught from a young age that Kia and Josh were so pure of spirit and heart that they belonged to Faraven, and so the divine dragons called to them and brought them to our world. How could people pure of heart be divorced? That was something the impure did. That was something only those willing to be banished asked for. I thought for a moment that they were changed and were no longer pure enough to return, that maybe that was why they'd left.

Kia told me very gently that my thought was wrong. She and Josh had left because they'd grown up past Faraven. They'd spent most of their adolescence there, but they recognized that if was their time to return to the outland. Faraven was a great place for children and teenagers, but not for adults. They wanted their own lives without the fear of worrying about what was pure or impure. Instead they opted to return to the outlands. Josh, the healer, became a doctor and Kia became a writer and they'd both had Michael.

I returned to the boarding house very confused. I don't know what to think anymore.

* * *

I told my house mother why I had been banished today. She was shocked when I told her. She was silent for the longest time. Finally she asked me who would be heir if I didn't return. I supplied the answer, and when I did I knew that I had to return to Faraven. My sister's lover would be the heir.

It doesn't matter now whether or not I did kill her. I cannot allow the man who could have killed my sister, the man who broke so many laws, the man who put himself in the position to take the thrown from my sister to take the crown. I cannot allow my country to remain in the dark any more.

Kia told me she had a way to return to Faraven. I will ask her if she'll take me back. But before that I need to pack. Whatever I bring back with me will be what I use to teach my people. I pack my trunk not with clothes or mementos of my life before my sister's death as I did when I left Faraven, but with the text books from my classes and the books I bought or was given or checked out from the library. I pack the technologies that I have acquired during my stay in the outland, an ipod, a cell phone, a flashlight, the bottles of medicines that don't exist in Faraven. I have only the size of a trunk to fit all of the knowledge in the world to teach my people. It will never be enough. In my life time all I can do for Faraven will never be enough, but I have to try.

* * *

Kia had slipped a necklace around my neck. It was baby blue and the size and weight of a computer mouse. She left me alone with Michael after that. Leaving him was the hardest thing. I'd asked him for a picture of himself that I could have. Whether he thought that was odd or not he didn't say. He simply gave me a picture. I slipped it in between the pages of the year book I had gotten at school earlier in the day. They will be the only reminders I have of the year I lived in the Outland and the only reminders I have of Michael.

I don't know if he ever loved me, but I love him very much. He gave me a hug good bye and he returned to his mother. After that I was gone. The earth opened up at my feet and vines came out. They took me and the trunk I held to for dear life. I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them the vines were gone and I was in front of one of the divine dragons.

The dragons hold my world, my country together. Their magic is all the keeps our piece of the world together and as proof of their power they control plants all the way in Faraven to pick up people from the outland and bring them to Faraven.

I took a deep breath and released my trunk. "Can I have a moment, please?" I asked him. I knew that he could take me to the capital city, but I needed a moment to collect myself. I turned from the drag and walked to a nearby spring. It was clear and beautiful and reflective. I could see myself reflected on the surface. I stared into my own brown eyes, my contacts still in. For a while I just sat there starring. Then I slipped the picture of Michael out of the yearbook and looked at it. I didn't look very long, but it was enough.

I slipped the photo back into the book and shut it. I returned my gaze to myself in the water. I reached up and plucked one contact from my eye. I stared back at myself from the water, one eye brown from the contact, and one eye a dark, dark purple. In that moment I knew that what I had lived through for the past year was real. It was painful, but it was real. I couldn't deny what had happened, like I had been denying it for so long.

I slipped my contact back in and returned back to the dragon. "Alright, I'm ready," I said. The dragon would take me to the palace, where I planned to tell the truth of what actually happened to my sister.


End file.
